BKism: Spirits, super consciousness or psychology?

I would always think that Destruction is round the corner. I did not give importance to my personal growth in career, education, family. I always considered the present education, political, social system bogus and lost all interests from it.

Yes, indeed. In terms of life choices, the worst choice I ever made wasn't deciding to go to the BK centre the first time. It was deciding to go back again.

That is not to say there are not many good things that have eventuated or learnt, experiences etc. But, for sure, my life would be very very different if, back then, I had even a tiny portion of the cynicism and wisdom of how such things in life work (things like cults, psychology, impressionability, intentional and unintentional manipulation, identity etc) which can only develop with age and experience.

"Did you have any meditational experiences, visions etc?"

No ... Never.

Amazing. How disappointing. And yet you still stuck it out for years? Did you ever teach the course?

You see, there's another angle on the whole BK experience. When you are in, no one really expresses honest sentiments about what's going on in their life or experience. There's a strong pressure to confirm and say the right thing.

It's like how they often claim to experince "bliss", or be blissful. Even after years, I had not a clue what that meant. I would imagine "bliss", rather than just happiness etc, to be something as strong as a good orgasm (but with no come down afterwards). I cannot imagine how one might experience constantly, or even for half an hour. I have a feeling people often described their non-experiences in ways that made them sound like they were having experiences (after leaving, I've had people who did admit, like you, that they never experienced anything despite reporting it).

In years, I only ever had a handful of strong or rationally inexplicable experiences; generally while teaching the course/meditation, or leading a group meditation from the guddhi, which is what makes me tend to accept that I was being used as a channel, rather than doing it myself.

One hangs on, hoping for something wonderful or even pleasant, blaming oneself for it not happening.

You would think if it was a simple, mechanical-like process they promote, i.e. 'think this, connect up like that, have an experience', everyone could be having the same experience reliably each time.

I am not disrespecting you nor your experiencing but, rationally, I'd have to question whether it would have been any different if you'd just done some a simple Yoga breathing or 'mindfulness practise' like the Buddhists teach. Without a doubt "just sitting" is beneficial. So too is getting up at 4am or 6am and getting yourself prepared for the day before everyone else gets up. Many successful business people (and other religions) do and say precisely the same thing, without adding any god spirit.

Likewise, rationally, I'd have to question whether your practise really had any effects over external factors like the weather, or whether that was just confirmation bias (i.e. we saw things we wanted to, and ignored things that did not fit the model). Plenty of "yogyukt" BKs would miss planes, have car accidents, being attacked (even killed), lose money etc ... (which, of course, would be downplayed as "clearing bad karma"). The BKs win both ways; something good happens it's proof; something bad happen, it's your fault; bad karma.

But, just to rewind, I'd guess that most BKs still have some kind of experiences doled out to them in order to keep them hooked. It just doesn't seem like they were in control of them, or making them happen.

How can we explain the mechanism by which they happened, especially as they often happened at random times, i.e. not only while sitting in meditation?

Most of the experiences, like feeling 'in sync' with the universe and being at exactly the right place at the right time or feeling as if universe is very benevolent towards you and everything is tuned to perfection, are psychic in nature too. It's just the degree and nature of those experiences that vary from person to person.

For example, if you are psychically 'open'/highly sensitive you are likely to experience outer body experience/visions etc. To people who are slightly less open to that dimension such 'experiences' may manifest as intuition, a milder form of thought reading, some minor 'vaak-sidhhi' and so on.

If you are even more rooted in body/more insulated psychically you may get experiences mentioned at the very start of this reply. If you are too much rooted in body, you may not feel anything at all. If your energies are in opposite direction you may feel repulsion/bad experiences from your source as well (I recall a distinct case of a very old BK seeing tortures and hell-like scenes in his visions).

All these strong and weak experiences depend on 3 factors-

1) How strong your source is,
2) How open/well connected you are,
3) Whether the source and receiver are vibrating at similar frequencies at a particular instant of time.

Now comes a more interesting question that is what makes a person get more experience than other in channeling type relationship. I believe there are two types of people;

1) Who are naturally very sensitive to that phenomenon (such people are very rare),
2) Who become sensitive either by some spiritual practice which reduces their body consciousness (even this is quite rare) OR who are feeling 'low'/vulnerable at a particular period of time because of some suffering they have undergone which basically reduces their 'ego' and makes them more pliant to external psychic influence.

A person who is very happy and has a very strong aura around himself or someone who is too rooted in body consciousness would be almost insulated from such attempts at psychic manipulation. However, a person who is depressed/insecure/uncertain at a particular point of time becomes susceptible to such things at that point.

That would pretty much sum up most yogi BKs for me at least.

Now comes a more interesting question that is what makes a person get more experience than other in channeling type relationship. I believe there are two types of people ...

Good post, very clear and helpful. As a quick observation, I'd throw in a third unrelated influence, e.g. those under the influence of drugs or alcohol (again, I guess, ego weakeners?).

But I'd like to raise a question two other influences, a) the use of trauma for "cracking" people open, b) the possibility of 'socially transmitted' psychic influences. The latter would refer back to your earlier posts about the influence of gurus/tantriks working through others.

Possibly, in the first case, a counter argument could be that such trauma causes divisions in the individual and so, therefore, it's not external influences but influences that the individual believes are external but are actually just themselves.

Even after all of this time, on this forum, I don't think we've explored the use of trauma in the psychic manipulation of BK adherents, and in the creation of unhealthy attachment bonds with the leaders of the BK cult.

* (In psychology, this was explored by John Bowlby and is referred to as Attachment theory. Alexandra Stein has applied it to high pressure religions in her book 'Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems' [2016]).

In the second case, it's theorised with spiritualist circles that individuals relating to each other created psychic bonds or connection between them (or, even more specifically, between specific chakras of individuals depending on the circumstances), and that these psychic bonds are not "solid" but rather more like tubes through which other energies can flow.

We'd have to explore whether those "other energies" were just mental/emotional states of the individual, including the divided parts of themselves, or entirely separate spiritual entities of all natures. And, again, I'd argue 'both' occur rather than either/or.

Now, for the materialistically minded, that might sound too fantastically but to the empathic, I suspect it will sound entirely normal and reasonable. In fact, it's an experience that, e.g. lovers often have about their beloved ones, or mothers and their children often report even whether the other party is not geographically close to them.

This would then raise questions, or even present answers, for why individuals who have ostensibly "left" BKism, still struggle with influences, serve, or are used for the benefits of the BKWSU and its spirits.

They are, in a sense, still psychically enslaved to the BK community, even though physically and intellectually they have rejected it.

I'd throw in a third unrelated influence, e.g. those under the influence of drugs or alcohol (again, I guess, ego weakeners?).

The reason drugs/herbs etc are not included in discussions about serious spirituality is that unlike other spiritual practices or deep and long suffering which help reduce ego at a deeper, more fundamental level, drugs make the mind volatile and subdue conscious mind only for a brief period of time, and the mind returns back to its normal patterns once the effects of that drug subside. Again the difference lies in perspectives. Most Western experiments that have taken place take it for granted that spiritual experiences can be induced by altering states of consciousness by use of such chemicals mainly because they don't want to accept that consciousness transcends physical plane and has its own existence which encompasses the physical realm as its subset.

So what happens is while serious spiritual practices and long time suffering work at the level of ego which is both present in physical plane but transcends it too in what yogis call the 'manomay kosha' and even further to the 'anandmay kosha' and so on, and therefore connections formed by such individuals are far more potent and permanent in spiritual/psychic realm both in positive as well as in negative direction.

Possibly, in the first case, a counter argument could be that such trauma causes divisions in the individual and so, therefore, it's not external influences but influences that the individual believes are external but are actually just themselves.

Welcome to spirituality 101. All apparently external influences are only reflections of our temporary states of mind and once we realize this (not intellectually ... please GOD no) this boundary of external and internal vanishes and only one infinite consciousness exists, call it Advait, Brahm whatever.

In the second case, it's theorised with spiritualist circles that individuals relating to each other created psychic bonds or connection between them (or, even more specifically, between specific chakras of individuals depending on the circumstances), and that these psychic bonds are not "solid" but rather more like tubes through which other energies can flow.

That is more or less true for any human emotional interaction between two beings for emotions are nothing but chemical effects/reflections of psychic energies in physical plane. The deeper the bond between two individuals the ego barrier between them would be less and so more freely such energies will travel which in our case is "pyare BapDada" masquerading as omnipotent Shiv Baba.

About your last observation about ex-BKs, I would write in some detail as I consider it very important to address.

Most Western experiments that have taken place take it for granted that spiritual experiences can be induced by altering states of consciousness by use of such chemicals mainly because ...

I just wanted to make one thing clear. When it came to drugs, herbs, and alcohol etc opening people up psychically, or to psychic influences, I wasn't referring to positive spiritual endeavours but rather negative spiritual influences or attachments.

Although I'll admit that this entire discussion is largely theoretical for me, I have seen some remarkable non-BK related "spiritual" possessions/manifestation or channelling happened, even involving people who had no knowledge of how it worked, how how it happened, or who were skeptical of it. I am largely just laying it out as one theory to explain various phenomenon, to be weighed up against other theories. On the whole, I am not a believer in the belief that, e.g. dropping LSD or DMT, or taking ayahuasca is a 'fast track to enlightenment' but I could accept that they open individuals to psychic influences or spirits (and have some benefits). I've heard adherents of them argue that they do, e.g. to nature spirits, spirits of the herbs etc, but I have no such direct, personal experiences.

What I am referring to is the theory that such intoxicants open individuals up to other spirits/independent intelligences, both human and non-human, which lead to them entering or attaching themselves to one's spiritual bodies in a parasitical manner, and then influencing individuals' behaviour.

Although critics of this theory might dismiss it on multiple levels, it's offered as an explanation for addictive or anti-social behaviour, or even evil in many, perhaps even most traditional societies, a bit like how our physical bodies are full of other mutualistic or parasitical species, and they can influencing our behaviour (e.g. gut microbiota), so too can our spiritual bodies be - i.e. in the case of alcoholics, overeaters, abusers etc.

Most of these theories rely on the idea of humans being bound to this world by their strong, generally negative desires, and yet unable to enjoy them because they don't have a body of their own to do so, so they use someone else's body to do so, e.g. while they are blacked out or under the influence.

This could then be related back to whoever or whatever was acting through Lekhraj Kirpalani and other BKs.

I don't think you and I are saying anything contradictory. Whatever you have written about usage of drugs etc in this dimension most certainly affects the person and often provides him with some experience if done correctly, though I have no personal experience of this matter but it's well documented. I was trying to make a different point though.

I was trying to say that drugs etc give experiences of that dimension which cannot be as stable and permanent as the other means I have previously described. You can observe it in case of BKs too. Most 'genuine' BKs were the ones who had a continuous supply of psychic energy given out to them by that spirit throughout their lifetimes, even if in not very significant amount so, in the end, it's not just the intensity of the experience but also its longevity that is affecting the person in the long run, and it is true for any spiritual process of this nature more or less.

Most of these theories rely on the idea of humans being bound to this world by their strong, generally negative desires, and yet unable to enjoy them because they don't have a body of their own to do so, so they use someone else's body to do so, e.g. while they are blacked out or under the influence.

I think it won't be an exaggeration if I say that I have some personal experience in this regard and this idea of yours is quite true. Having said that I would like to point out that there are several different categories of spirits and I strongly believe that whatever spirit possessed Mr. Lekhraj did not do it because it wanted to satiate its desires through his body or his followers bodies. I think its a different, far deeper game than we can guess or imagine sitting in the comfort of our homes. I have several questions to ask myself if someone understands these things but I think it will remain mystery to us as I haven't seen or heard anyone within or outside BK circles who can talk to me in my language and frequency regarding all this.

I strongly believe that whatever spirit possessed Mr. Lekhraj did not do it because it wanted to satiate its desires through his body or his followers bodies. I think its a different, far deeper game than we can guess or imagine sitting in the comfort of our homes.

Your second sentence is the big $65,000 question that we all ask after extricating ourselves, i.e. "What was that all about?".

Your first I am not so sure about because the accounts and impressions that the BKWSU gave about the seances in the early days are VERY different from how they were recorded at the time, and how non-bus remembered them. They have been deeply fictionalised by the BKs to suit their current facade or agenda. Hence reading the historic documents from the early days is important, e.g. that there was no mention of any God Shiva, that Lekhraj Kirpalani most certain indulged in physical relationships with the young women to various degrees while playing out his Krishna fantasies, e.g. nude bathing, group sleep, breast "pulling" (as it was described), none of which was denied by Om Radhe during the investigation.

Non-BK elders reported them as often being raucous, people being fearful, and then there were the long term and group visions or possessions. What disturbed them was how the young women and girls strongly reacted. It appears to have been quite sensual. They were not "Om Shanti" or "Avyakt" days. The BKs had to reinvent themselves.

Whereas I could agree that part of it was just Lekhraj Kirpalani losing it to his unresolved psychologies, his ego being "turbo-charged" by the initiation that he was, I would argue, not ready for; I have to wonder at what else was going on at a psychic level?

That is was hidden by the BKs for decades and not explored and discussed leads me to assume it was/is not positive.

This would then raise questions, or even present answers, for why individuals who have ostensibly "left" BKism, still struggle with influences, serve, or are used for the benefits of the BKWSU and its spirits.They are, in a sense, still psychically enslaved to the BK community, even though physically and intellectually they have rejected it.

Although no one likes their deepest, most life transforming experiences and secrets to be taken lightly by others, and also some experiences are meant to be kept to oneself and for good reason too, but since we are completely anonymous here I will stick my neck out a bit on this one.

I have mentioned before that I had established a psychic connection with a different 'being' before falling prey to BKs. When that happened os I literally felt as if some molten fall of very high order 'emotions' (though it was a deeper energy than that), what BKs refer to as bliss, love etc, was poured inside my spine from above. Half of my 'kundalini', i.e the 3 lower chakras became alive in a matter of 24 odd hours. It felt as if I was literally floating in a sea of golden light, the vitality I started feeling, the current that started flowing inside my spine was so huge that even remembering those times gives me goosebumps and a very strong feeling of regret.

Anyways the point is I literally felt as if a psychic umblical chord connected me to that saint and a part of his consciousness descended inside of me. When I joined the BK cult that connection did not get severed instantly but it took a very strong will power from my side to stop my mind from flowing into that saint's energy body and instead connect with the new 'source' of power from the BK world and acclimitize my very weak mind to take spiritual nourishment from it which I found to be much diluted than the previous source.

Since I had a constant comparision between the two 'experiences' in my mind, which at that time I used to blame, as I thought it was preventing me from being 'nishchay-budhhi'. Only now after so many years do I realize it is only due to that connection that I was saved from the new psychic bonds I had formed with the BK cult. Since most people barely have such experiences from one source let alone two, they readily believe that such powerful experiences can only be given by GOD and swallow their bullsh** even if their inner voice is constantly telling them that something is 'off' about this whole BK experience.

The game started when in 2016, I tried to re-establish connection to that saint after finally leaving BKs for good. Despite all the external help by one such 'channel', and despite feeling that energy flowing inside me, I couldn't absorb it anymore. Consider yourself very thirsty for so long and then you finally have access to drinking water. However, a thin film of polythene is now covering your inside including your tongue (sorry for this crude analogy). I felt a similar thing. That power was trying to flow inside my spine but I was feeling insulated/numb as if something was broken almost physically inside of me. For 5 years, I tried but to no avail. Such has been the negative damage caused to me by BK God spirit. Eventually I left that path also and now following a simple traditional Bhakti path for 2 years or so.

So, yeah, psychic bonds are very real and you get connected to that source at a deeper (deeper than sub-conscious) level and it will take a lot of effort to break that old bond both at psychic levels as well at psychological-conditioning level. So to anyone who was in connection with that spirit, even briefly, my advice would be that you first try to replace the BK beliefs with a new belief system and visit powerful spiritual centers suited to your belief systems, and try to form connections to that for a few years and strengthen that 'bond' as much as you can, and read as much as you can about various schools of thought and try to experiment with new practices/ideologies etc till a point is reached and you can finally look back and feel 'healed' from BK influence.

All this is valid in varying degrees to your 'experience' at spiritual level within this cult or any such cult in general which works on spiritual channeling. But break that connection completely before leaving your body otherwise that spirit will have power to influence you. I am not trying to scare you or anything but writing all this because I sincerely believe this to be true. So goodluck and good night.

(I'll aways preface this but admitting that I don't know if anything is true, but I am attempting to report what was said and done accurately)

I once knew a healer who specialised in breaking psychic chords or attachments. Actually, there are many and different approaches to do so, but she was different in that she did not believing in just cutting them, but blocking them off and dissolving them. She argued that just cutting or tearing, as can happen in the break up of deep relationship/friendship, can leaving people damaged and "leaking" psychic energy; again, something many people report in, e.g. the break up of love affair, or the loss of a family member.

Working in a light trance, she would have patients feel or visualise which chakras were chorded to whom, then look into the chord to find out what it was that had caused the relationship (this could be done via free association on behalf of the patient or she could guide them), visualise it transformed in a positive way, then "plug" the chord like it was a tube at both ends, then "dissolve" it.

Now, read what I wrote above again! I have no idea if it worked, what was going on but I would say it was far more like the original forms of psychotherapy than usual talking therapies today are, in that involved free association in light hypnotic trances.

There are genuine healers in this world, there are also frauds. I don't believe all are however.

From my own experience with BKism, a symptom I've also heard other ex-BKs report, I can easily trigger a sense of a pressure or concentration in the middle of my forehead. While I was a BK, and after I first left BKism, if I approached any other simple meditation such a Buddhist mindfulness, I would always start to get this same pressure instead. The other ex-BKs would tell me that it even becomes painful for them, e.g. causing a headache, and that the presence of BKs could trigger it for them.

I don't see it as a positive thing, whilst I do see it as something beyond just a physical or mental thing. I've felt many very clear and obvious spiritual energies from various individuals of a variety of religions.

Some might just argue that it's a universal experience, e.g. something to do with the crown chakra that the BKs have reinterpreted to be their own. I have no idea, but because it's associated with BKism in my mind, I tend to think it is not and it's something to do with their practise that I have no overcome.

But, yes, I concur with you that BKism claims you for itself for a long time.

BKs would argue that that is proof of its truth or value. I cannot agree because BKism is so based on falsehoods. For me, something truth wouldn't need to or even be able to lie, manipulate, or mislead.

More than one ex-BK has reporting feeling as if they'd had to fight against such influences to be free from it.

Hence the importance of working out what it is, what's really going on, how to block it, and how to move on.

I've not invested myself into any other practise, although it would be good if there were genuine masters who could understand what it is or what's going. May be there are purely secular/material ways to block it too? I don't know. Just telling myself it's not real doesn't work.

In an earlier post I had mentioned 3 factors on which a channeling type relationship depends. The first was the strength of your 'source'; and the second was the strength of your bond with that source. In the case of normal humans (and even some non-human ones, involving lower level spirits etc), it is far easier to stop the flow of these energies into your subtle bodies. The BK spirit may not be following path of 'dharma' but that does not mean that it is not powerful. It has literally transformed too many people's life, for better or for worse.

There is a point which you often mention that since there are too much lies/deceptions involved in this cult, it makes this 'lower order spirit'. This is one of the realizations happened to me after coming in contact with BKs, that despite being clearly on the path of 'adharma' you can appear extremely pure, full of bliss/joy, purity and possess significant amounts of 'shakti'. Only now, when I consider myself slightly wiser than I was 10 years ago and listening to a few aghoris, 'shaktas' etc who appear to really know their stuff, do I form new ideas about these things. So believe you me when I say that moving towards enlightenment, or moving in opposite direction to it, are separate things; and acquiring more and more power, or being completely powerless, are two distinctly separate things. You can be very evolved and yet a person/spirit may totally overpower you and turn your world upside down, at least for some time, and that time would depend on your karmic accounts.

That's why I don't much care about what the records show of brahmakumaris, and what they are claiming now or were claiming to be true at some point of time, because there are too many variables involved if you take that approach. I don't want to sound arrogant but I understand Indian society better than you both in present times, as well as historically speaking, so what a bunch of old Sindhis said in courts in the 40s, what was published in magazines etc, sounds very similar to a stereotypical divorce case in current Indian society, and reading the arguments sounds like more or less like listening to allegations by both parties levelled to swing the jury in their favour. It may give you some points to win a debate, but won't get you closer to truth.

That's why I only focus on the experiential reality of this cult and its main spirit, because that to me is real and the buck stops there.

I don't want to sound arrogant but I understand Indian society better than you both in present times, as well as historically speaking ...

Perhaps so, but I am not just referring to court details but also the religious materials that they themselves produced.

You cannot build an age of truth out of a mountain of lies which is precisely what the BKs are attempting to do. They're certainly achieving the latter, I don't see how it will lead to the former. A Sat Yug.

It's also evidence for me of how enlightened Lekhraj Kirpalani and they were. I mean, seriously, if it take you 20 plus years to work out that you are not god, where on the spectrum of enlightenment are you? We lose our evidence based, critical thinking facility following BKism. BKism is about an unquestioning conformity to what the current "Gyan" is, that prioritises expedience over clarity and integrity.

As you emphasis, yes, an experiential element is important but, as you confirm yourself, many are convinced in the BKs god spirit purely because of their experiences. There needs to be some kind of objective assessment of the product in order to assess the source. Would a pure/high soul choose someone just because they were rich, even though they were deluded? I would have thought not.

And yet the BKs continue to seduce and milk the wealthy and deluded by deluding them even further!

"The apple doesn't fall far from The Tree".